This invention is an improvement over the wire wrapping tools disclosed in Scovill and Tipton U.S. Pat. No. 3,967,661 granted July 6, 1976 to Vector Electronic Company of Silmar, California as assignee. That patent discusses in its first two columns a considerable number of United States patents comprising the background for the present invention.
The principal disadvantage of prior art wrapping tools has been the severely limited length of wrapping wire which could be conveniently carried by the tool itself. Small spools of wire mounted on the remote or distal end of the hollow spindle, in which the wire wrapping bit is mounted in the priximal end, have been used in both simple hand-twirled wire wrapping tools and in portable hand-held motor driven wire wrapping tools of the kind manufactured and sold by Vector Electronic Company, Inc. of Silmar, Calif. and by OK Machine and Tool Corporation of 3455 Connors Street, Bronx, N.Y. 10475. These small spools of wire customarily carry no more than fifty feet of standard wrapping wire, requiring frequent reloading and inconvenient juggling of tools by the operator, providing interruptions and serious inefficiency and interfering with the process of installing wrapped wire connections.
Another disadvantage of conventional wire wrapping tools arises from the need for continuity checking of the completed wrapped terminals and their connecting wires. No automatic continuity check capability has been afforded by prior art wrapping tools, necessitating the use of continuity checking probes, meters and the like.
Prior conventional wire wrapping tools have thus failed to provide an efficient wire wrapping device for continuous and uninterrupted use providing easily verified continuity checks of the wrapped connections being installed.
Accordingly a principal object of the present invention is to provide a lightweight portable wire wrapping tool providing self-contained storage for a large quantity of wrapping wire.
A further object of the invention is to provide such wire wrapping tools with an easily interpreted continuity checking visual indicator.
Another object of the invention is to provide such wire wrapping tools in extremely lightweight portable form, capable of wrapping thousands of wire wrapped connections and confirming their reliability while minimizing operator fatigue and downtime for reloading fresh supplies of wire.
Other objects of the invention will in part be obvious and will in part appear hereinafter.
The invention accordingly comprises the features of construction, combinations of elements, and arrangement of parts which will be exemplified in the construction hereinafter set forth, and the scope of the invention will be indicated in the claims.